Avalon Bay manages fairly nice apartments. I've been invovled with the construction of some. The ones I've delt with were always around $1,00 a month rent.
Most people think that housing has been in a crash since 2004. But this is not true for the apartment people. In fact AVB's ability to pay back to investors has improved from $.70 per quarter all the way up to $.89 per quarter from 2004 up to the mot recent quarter with the most recent quarter raising the dividend by more than 4 pennies. Now you may say Big F'ing Deal a stock will risee and fall more than that in 10 minutes. But it is a big deal. This is why...
When the market recovers, and some day it will. The first stock to rally will be those with improved earnings and improving dividends. So when a company like AVB gives back an extra nickle they are really securing you an extra $20 dollars.